Minute SHIFTS That Matter #29

You keep deciding toward the person you want to be. Decide from him instead.

You set the goal again this year. You know the one.

The weight. The habit. The revenue. The version of you who has it handled.

And you've been walking toward him for a while now. Some weeks you gain ground. Some weeks you slide.

So he stays out ahead of you. Always the next quarter. Always after the next push.

Sit with what that costs you, quietly, every day.

Deciding toward someone means you are always the one who hasn't arrived. Every choice is a small audition for a self you have not earned yet. That's a tax you pay at breakfast, at the gym, in the meeting, and you pay it whether you win the day or lose it.

Maybe you've hit the goal before and watched the feeling evaporate inside a week.

Maybe you have three plans running and none of them touch the thing that walks back in every January.

Maybe you're tired of becoming, and you couldn't say why until just now.

I'll go first, because this one got me.

After my prostate surgery, my training held but my eating and drinking went sideways, especially on the monthly trips up the mountain to family property. I worked out and still felt bad. It was getting out of hand. I tried the usual toward-it approach for a while. Watch it, cut back, do better.

Then I stopped deciding toward it. "I finally had to become the 160 pound fit guy that I am," is how I said it at the time. "That's what I decided. This is who I am. So every day, that's how I start my day."

The trip that used to break the old pattern, I handled from the new one. I still enjoyed the week. I enjoyed it as the guy who exercises and eats well and also knows how to have fun. Six pounds gone in under three weeks. Fastest five miles I'd run in two years. The behavior didn't lead. The decision did.

You already have days that prove this.

The days it wasn't effort. The right call was obvious and you made it without the spin. Look close and you'll see it. On those days you weren't trying to become anyone. You were already being him, and the actions came out of that.

The version of you who has it handled is not a destination. He is a place you get to decide from, starting with the next choice on your calendar.

Identity first. Then everything finally works.

Meet the version of you already running it

P.S. Picture your next decision today. Now make it as the person who already has this handled, not the one hoping to. Notice how different the choice feels before you have done a single thing. That's the whole move.

Bill